The myth of the mark

1. From an outdoor advertising

Commuting every day, through a major crossroads for the city transportation hub. One morning it was found that a new giant billboard was erected at the crossroads. Billboard is extremely bright and eye-catching: three teeth, Zhu lip, bright eyes and full face of the sunny foreign beautiful mm-oriented picture, and another handwritten advertising language "Let life more exciting", there is a logo pattern and another part of the logo "Mingren".

After several days of observation and inference, beautiful mm and advertising language can not reflect the brand information, from "Mingren" to infer, can spell "celebrity", and mm of white teeth connection, I infer that should be "celebrity toothpaste" ads. Think, not only laughing: celebrities, although there is a certain degree of visibility, but this ad to do a bit outrageous, do not appear brand name, your logo a few people can recognize, remember to live? As a professional advertiser, you have to guess how many days, not to mention ordinary consumers?

So, I in the company's training, this example as a negative case for some analysis. After a few months, this is the outdoor, let the people surprised.

Or that billboard, or those visual elements, new added brand information: Akihito Dental Hospital, professional teeth cleaning teeth. Finally understand, this "Akihito" is not a "celebrity". As for why a few months later to reveal the truth, I speculate, there are two situations: first, the advertisers found the brand information vacancy, to be remedied; the second is the so-called suspense advertising, purposeful planning. If it is the first case, it is common sense error; if it is the second case, the more dare not to compliment, this planning is too low-level, is the Beijing city burned a lot of true gold and silver Lenovo "4.28 who let you move" suspense-type outdoor advertising campaign, also did not know how much effect, not to mention such a small trick?

Through this outdoor advertising, you can see that advertisers and advertisers of the brand "logo" infatuation, the logo can even directly replace the brand name to communicate with consumers. 2003, the corporate change of the logo action one after another, the big brand among the Coca-Cola to replace the Chinese logo, Lenovo to English logo Lenovo replaced the original legend, Xiamen new face for Amoi, China Telecom to change the label even caused the copyright controversy ...

The myth of the logo is long-standing. The myth of the logo is being interpreted as a new story. The myth of the mark is the emperor's new dress.

2. Questioning and exploring

At the end of 1999, as the head of the project group of Hisense Brand, I organized a large-scale "Hisense brand status investigation" in Jinan, Weifang, Qingdao, Dalian, Nanjing and Zhengzhou. Two of these phenomena have aroused our attention and thought: On average, 70% of the respondents did not recognize the Hisense logo; consumers believe Hisense also produces refrigerators (11%), washing machines (5%) and microwave ovens (3%).

In fact, in our chosen area of investigation, Shandong is the stronghold of Hisense for many years, other cities are also its main market, consumer perception of the brand is so, considering its southern market at that time less impact, the overall situation is not optimistic. And, in the investigation process, not only the logo of Hisense is confused, even Changhong, Haier, Pepsi, Konka and other brands are often the logo of consumers Columa. There is a more extreme example, in a town middle school, we in a family of the hostess interview, incredibly can not see what a few years of color TV is what brand!

At that time, Hisense is brewing a new brand strategic planning. In the spring of 2000, the new brand communication campaign began with the change of logo, only the new logo and the image of a direct investment that amounted to nearly billion.

In the actual investigation and operation process, by a variety of design companies, by large and small enterprises as a tool to open up the market and the symbol of the totem is really so magical? I began to look at it with a questioning eye.

The symbol is a myth, for the business of the company is the source of profit. This set of business is modeled as the so-called "VI", and in this model, the logo is the center, once it is determined, then "sketchy, all smooth". The status of the logo in this business is so important that the myth is understandable. A very loud company, to do CI for the main business, in fact, Hung Ci sheep head, mainly sell vi--is also "logo" dog meat. Listen to this company's staff introduction, this is pop, 10 or so employees, the boss went out to lecture, talk about business, signed the design department is responsible for logo design, a pile of solutions, and then transferred to the Planning Department, the department's staff to "plan" the sale of the number of signs of the reasons-once the customer selected one of the options, The design department completes the design of the whole set of visual recognition system in the shortest time. The general situation is that, as long as the customer accepts and applies the logo of its design, the 36-meter is gone. Behind the myth of the logo, it is often left with "rotten tail" works, as well as signs of myth in circulation.

The symbol is the myth, to the owner of the logo, it carries too much content and expectations. Each sign has a perfect interpretation of meaning, only in the industry attributes, enterprise attributes, product attributes, international attributes, representational significance, abstract symbols, aesthetic meaning, and so the profound meaning of some with the customer has resonated, or in the customer's perfect description can be realized, a bearing a variety of connotations and expectations of the mark will be born. Whether the logo can be adopted, to some extent, depends on whether the myth reacts with the client's decision-makers. I have experienced the symbol of the soul-stirring proposal, because the boss taboo black and no room to tear down the whole, in the display of the company instructions system part, the boss pointed to the "parking signs" reprimand: I am the cause of the rapid development of our business, how can "stop" it? Therefore, a simple sign, on the interpretation of the myth, the broad connotation of deep ignorance.

This shows that the logo is not a myth by chance, but the big environment and small environment altogether

The result of the same effect, there is the soil and the hotbed that it produces. Large environment, is the CI wave to our great China, like the film "Big Shot" in the "Chinese actors collectively calcium phenomenon", the big shots do not have to be finished, in the wind surges in the environment, you do not follow the trend to go forward. Small environment, I think is the operating level, professional design companies pick their best to do to sell the part to do, customers also mostly think that the image of unity is not to be overwhelmed, do to do, small environment can in turn affect the big environment.

Then, peel off the symbol of the myth of the cloak, the original meaning of what?